 Hello Lovely Authors & Publishing Friends! Grab a cup of tea, or glass of wine, a snack and please take time to go over all of this. I know how hard it is to find time, but this post covers everything you need to know up to today. The deadline for participating with Barnes & Nobel's display has passed. There is still time to participate in other optional portions this year. Please note: parts of the email that led you to this blog, and the post, may not pertain to you specifically. Nothing here is personally directed at any one person, it's to help clarify things to a large group of people. Also, I always get emails after I post a blog update so please be patient with me while I answer them and please scroll through this to see if your answer is in here. Many thanks to the folks who wished me well for my oral surgery, but the night before it was supposed to happen they moved it due to an anesthesiologist scheduling conflict. Now it's going to be tomorrow morning and I'll be resting for two days, then have to catch up with my day job work on Friday, and get back to anybody with questions over the weekend if I'm up to it. The seating graphic is in this post (at the very end), but I have not had time to DOUBLE TRIPLE check it yet, so if you see an error, please feel free to let me know, I just wanted y'all to see how it's looking. I do make mistakes, I am happy to fix them, and I never mean any disrespect by them. We have grown about three times as big but still have the same very small team, so thank you for your patience. We also want to remind everybody that the tables are 18" deep, not 24" - so they are more shallow than the standard banquet table. Please plan accordingly. We do mention this in the registration form. Some authors were disappointed at the table sizes last time--we mentioned it last time too, but I think sometimes things don't stick because you're busy or don't have context. I'm doing an extra reminder here for you. And for context the tables are these very tables behind me in the red cloths - you can see they aren't as deep as a standard table.  Cardyn and I met to knock some book fest things off of the list, make to-do lists, and make sure our ducks are all in a row, QUACK QUACK. Also a shout-out to Cardyn for the birthday cupcakes. I turned 55 mid-March.  QUESTIONS THIS BLOG POST ANSWERS What hotel is it and can I book a room and get a discount? What is parking like? I forget what is included with my registration, can I get a reminder? Can I bring a helper, friend, guest, or child? How many after party passes do I get? How do I set-up a pre-order? Do I need to send swag, and if so, when and where? Do you have graphics I can share to show I am in the event? Is registration totally closed? Yes, registration is totally closed. Sorry. Where can we sign up to be on panels? Is there a ticket link? What all can I sell? WHAT HOTEL IS IT AT AND CAN I BOOK A ROOM? The hotel is The Bowie Comfort Inn & Conference Center I you are flying in, the best airport that is closest to us is BWI. You can come in DC if you want! We are semi-close to that as well, but BWI would be my choice. Parking at the hotel is free and onsite and plentiful. It's one of the reasons we chose this venue. If you're having a group of friends come, carpooling is a helpful suggestion to them.  I forget what is included with my registration, can I get a reminder How you registered depends on what you get. Anybody who did not get the full table with an assistant will have to have any visitors or helpers buy a ticket if they are doing more than helping you load-in and load-out. Please be mindful of your neighbors, and don't block their tables with your signs. We prefer authors mostly stay behind their tables during the signing as to not block neighboring tables - though of course coming out for a photo and such is fine! The event is structured like this: SATURDAY Check-in Saturday Morning - times will be sent out in June. Saturday is a tabling/signing reader day. There will be live poetry and a children's room with children's authors. The rest of the space is dedicated to authors & author services. Lunch will be at your table (sorry, it's just the most practical way to do it!). You will go to the bar (connected to the ballroom) to pick your lunch up once it's available. Saturday after we close up signing we will have a small gap, then have an after-party that is just basically a cocktail mixer for unwinding and talking to your fellow authors and publishers. What can you sell? You can sell your books and anything related to your books, or if your a publishing company or author services, anything related to those services. No need to check-in on Sunday, just wear your badge to attend or access panel rooms. We need volunteers to help with this portion, if you're not going to be on a panel, please volunteer. Sunday is all panels and the Erin Wright workshop for publishing wide. Full space with assistant - you get a full table on Saturday and two passes to the after party. Each of you are able to snack on the light breakfast items, each will get a lunch on Saturday and passes for panels and the Erin Wright workshop (at least to capacity, first come first seated) on Sunday and lunch on Sunday as well. Full space, no assistant - you get a full table and one pass to the after party. You are able to snack on the light breakfast items, and will get a lunch on Saturday and a pass for panels and the Erin Wright workshop (at least to capacity, first come first seated) on Sunday and lunch on Sunday as well. Half table, no assistant - you get a half table space and one pass to the after party. You are able to snack on the light breakfast items, and will get a lunch on Saturday and a pass for panels and the Erin Wright workshop (at least to capacity, first come first seated) on Sunday and lunch on Sunday as well.  Blind Date With a Book Participation Prepare yourself for our Blind Date with a Book game. We realize some authors don't like being approached by folks just for a signature to get their free blind date with a book, but it's happening. This was 98% enthusiastically received last time and we try to keep it chill. No deadlines for the attendee, it's while supplies last. And only 10 initials are required. The idea of this is to get folks to stop by ten tables. Some authors wanted to participate with this last time so YES, you can definitely donate some of your books to the Blind Date with a Book Game. All you have to do is wrap them in plain brown paper, it can even be a grocery bag, and put the genre and a brief description on the wrapping. Bring these with you the day of the book signing (July 19th) and drop them off onto the BDwaB table.  Raffle Baskets & Items - A Good Marketing Opportunity If you would like to provide a raffle basket we are welcoming you to do that. We recommend if you are going to do that, that you use branded goods and your own books or if you're a publisher or narrator, or BookTuber that you provide things that lead back to you. Please no homemade food items. Please nothing with peanuts. A raffle basket is a fun marketing opportunity. Half the proceeds from the raffle baskets goes to I Support the Girls and half goes back into the book fest. To participate bring your already assembled basket to the raffle table the morning of Saturday 7/19. We will take care off the rest! Book Raffles for I Support the Girls We spent a part of the day making 12 raffle book bags, all profits for those will be going to I Support the Girls, who is partnering with us this year. We were pretty proud of ourselves for making these little book bag cubbies out of Trader Joe's paper bags. Upcycling for the win! Each bag cubbie will have six books with a loose theme and some other bookish goodies. We are asking if you are able to bring for donation of their most needed items which would be overnight maxis with wings, and new underwear in the package of any size. We will have a collection space at the event for these things. If you have other period products you already have on hand, please feel free to bring those!  SIGN UP FOR A PANEL You can sign up to participate with a panel HERE. Please note, with limited space and time there is a chance that everybody that wants to participate won't be able to, so sign up sooner rather than later if you are sure you want to be on a panel. Deadline to sign up is April 30th. We have one really good workshop this year by Erin Wright on publishing wide, we are excited and feel lucky to have her. We don't have time for additional workshops during Sunday's event, but you can always submit to do a virtual workshop and we will happily promote it! Our Keynote Speaker this year is Golden Angel, and she will speak on Sunday, so if you don't want to be ON a panel, there is plenty still to enjoy and do, including an inspirational speech by Golden Angel sure to inspire and motivate. ALL ABOUT PRE-ORDERS IF YOU MISSED IT IN OUR LAST POST (YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SET UP PRE-ORDERS, YOU CAN JUST SHOW UP WITH YOUR BOOKS YOU ALREADY HAVE IN STOCK) PRE-ORDERS WITH BARNES & NOBLE Most Importantly - Your Book Has to Be Able to Be in the B&N System If your book/s is/are not available through B&N and you want to provide for preorders, you'll need to set one up for yourself we can link to on our website. This option is best for people who are flying, for people who have a larger fanbase and are likely to have 20 or more book orders, or for people who might only want to bring a small amount of their own stock and really heavily push pre-orders. HOW IT WORKS Provide your readers with the store phone number and have them order your book from the Bowie Barnes & Noble and tell them it's for The Write Women Book Fest. The books will be ordered and held at the store by the manager until the event, or until the customer comes to pick it up - whichever comes first. That's it! Aren't sure if your book can be preordered through B&N? Call the number and they'll look it up and tell you. You can do this for however many of your books you want to offer up for pre-order through this process. The drop-dead last date for people to get those orders in is Friday June 27th.
SELF PREORDERS (THE DEADLINE FOR THIS HAS PASSED) SWAG - OPTIONAL Want to send us swag for the swag bags? Swag is a nice way to reward attendees and keep your name in their minds. We recommend keeping some swag at your table, too. Send a minimum of 200 pieces of swag. A maximum of 500 pieces of swag. We do not yet know how many swag bags we will have and won't know until late June. We need swag no later than May 15th to: Heather Brooks 511 Prince George St. Laurel, MD 20707 PLEASE DO NOT SEND FOOD, OR ANYTHING THAT WILL MELT OR EXPLODE OR LEAK. Please add your name and information to this sheet and when we receive your swag we will check it off. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR SWAG HAS YOUR NAME AND/OR BRANDING ON IT! We do sometimes get swag with no identifying features which is sad because it's supposed to help sell your books. LIBRARY PARTICIPATION - OPTIONAL
AUTHOR CHECKLIST
GRAPHICS TO SHARE & TICKET LINKS Here are the ticket links: https://www.thewritewomenbookfest.org/2025-tickets.html#/ Please include this in your newsletters and on your socials! Thank you!    LAYOUT MAP Below is the layout map for Saturday's signing. This is NOT finalized so please understand this may change some, but overall this is it. I'm sorry the close up text is soft, that's the best I could do with a screencap and the PDF download doesn't include all the info, so this will have to do for now.  Here they are zoomed in a bit.   NEW AND STILL FEELING A LITTLE LOST?
That's ok, just email Heather with your questions at [email protected]. It can be kind of overwhelming and when you don't know the shape of something, it can be a big confusing blob that needs more context. Hopefully I have answered most of your questions. There WILL be more updates - merch, final map, other important info, in the weeks to come. Thank you for being such an important part of our event. Best, Heather & Cardyn
1 Comment
4/10/2025 01:37:33 pm
Thank you for this update! Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2025
Categories |
RSS Feed
